


You Can Tell Me When It's Over (If The High Was Worth The Pain)

by equalopportunityobsessor



Series: Not This Mind, and Not This Heart [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha Clint, Alpha Rhodey, Alpha Steve, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Because of Reasons, Beta Phil, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, Mentions of Past Dubious Consent, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mpreg, Multi, Omega Natasha, Omega Tony, Omega Verse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pack Dynamics, Pre-Slash, Reasons Being That This Omega Verse Is Wolfier Than Your Omega Verse, WIP, slight - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-23 08:21:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2540885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equalopportunityobsessor/pseuds/equalopportunityobsessor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clearly, the Avengers are forming a pack - whether Tony likes it or not. It's also pretty clear that Steve, their Alpha, wants him, Tony, to be their Omega - <em>his</em> Omega. </p><p>Clearly, this is a mistake. Steve doesn't know that, yet. </p><p>He doesn't know just how broken Tony is. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <em>Tony still had a collar in a bottom drawer of his closet - hidden, but not locked away - because he couldn’t shake the dooms-day certainty that he’d always, <b>always</b> need it. The thick, titanium-reinforced saddle leather was buttery-smooth and battered from use, scared with fang marks and scratches alike -</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is part two of a series, and I would say you for sure need to read part one to understand this. If you don't want to for any reason, but are interested in reading this segment, drop me a line and I'll fill you in! 
> 
> Comments are more than appreciated, mostly because I use them as an excuse to procrastinate, so do me a favour, eh?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I felt your arms twistin' around me; I should have slept with one eye open at night._

Tony stood on the roof of his Tower, watching the clouds above instead of the bustling city below. He shook another cigarette out of the crisp, nearly empty pack in his pocket and lit it off the end of the dying one in his fingertips. The now useless filter joined the litter of short brown cylinders at his feet.

Tony lifted his shaking fingers to his mouth, filling his lungs gratefully with the acrid smoke. He was well on the way to nicotine poisoning, but the buzz in his veins was so much better than thinking for too long about his _feelings_.

God, he couldn’t believe he was _having_ feelings about this! Nothing had _happened_ , at least, nothing that hadn’t happened _before_.

He’d been spending his heats with Alphas since he was twenty-one. He’d been sleeping with them, and with every other sex, for much _, much_ longer than that.

This was far from the first time he’d slept with two Alphas in the same night, back to back, both of whom had made it very, very clear that they wanted to Bond him. It wasn’t the first time an Alpha had tried to force him into Bonding.

Tony still had a collar in a bottom drawer of his closet, hidden but not locked away, because he couldn’t shake the dooms-day certainty that he’d always, _always_ need it. The thick, titanium-reinforced saddle leather was buttery-smooth and battered from use, scared with fang marks and scratches alike -

Hell, it wasn’t even the first time _Rhodey_ had tried to Bond him, in the heat of the moment.

It had never been a big deal, before. When everybody was able to keep it in their pants for longer than it took to catch their breaths between rounds, Rhodey apologized very awkwardly, tiptoeing around Tony’s state of mind. Tony merely checked himself _very_ carefully for any kind of lesion, and brushed it off.

It was just another one of those things. It was just an instinct, a hormone-driven urge, and not something to be fussed over – so long as it didn’t actually happen.

Tony had never given a thought to what would happen if Rhodey, or Pepper, ever _did_ bond him against his wishes. It wasn’t like a bond was precisely _reversible._ They didn’t get to take it back, Tony had no way out…

Tony shook his head sharply, trying to shake the thoughts out of his head by force. It didn’t matter, _it didn’t matter_ , it was over, it was all over and he wasn’t due for another heat until… Shit, don’t think about it, _don’t think about it –_

Tony’s heats hadn’t come with anything approaching ‘regularity’ since Natasha had moved in.

He took a long drag of the slightly crumpled cigarette in his stiff fingers, inhaling until he could feel his lungs mummifying in his chest. Tony held the smoke in his lungs until he felt slightly lightheaded, and exhaled. It didn’t drown out the little voice in his head, the one that hissed, _Maybe Rhodey is getting tired of your shit, Stark. Maybe next time you’re out of your mind and split open on his knot, begging for it like the slimy whore you are, he’ll just shove his teeth right into your neck, and you’ll bite him without even thinking about it, and that’ll be that. You’ll be his, and it won’t matter what you want, will it? Will it?!_

Tony let out a pained groan, refusing to even think of the sound as a whine of fear, feeling the edges of a panic attack creeping up around him. Without thinking, he jabbed the lit end of his cigarette into the sensitive palm of his hand. He hissed at the sudden and unexpectedly pervasive burn, but didn’t move the cigarette, instead watching in fascination as his skin reddened beneath the small flame.

A small, pale hand came out of nowhere and knocked his hands apart, jarring the cigarette from his grasp. Tony flinched and spun, fangs out and snarling to meet – oh. It was just Natasha.

She glared at him, but it seemed a little softer than her normal glare. This was her ‘you are such an _idiot_ ’ glare, not her ‘you are too stupid for words’ glare, so that was alright. She snatched up Tony’s injured hand and inspected it carefully. Tony let her, feeling simultaneously manic and lethargic from the nicotine. Oh, he was going to be so sick tomorrow.

Natasha wrapped her small hand tightly around his wrist, tugging him along as she led the way to the kitchen. It was strangely comforting, the almost-hand-holding. Natasha could probably kill him with a hair-elastic, but she was _safe_.

She shoved him onto a stool at the breakfast bar, but not hard enough to make him trip or fall, which was practically a hug, with Natasha. She didn’t look him in the eyes while she dug out a First Aid kit, or while she smeared his hand with a burn salve and covered it with a clean gauze. It was a good thing too, because then Tony didn’t have to try and avoid her gaze.

She turned back to the First Aid kit, plucking blister packs of pills out and discarding them, obviously looking for something in particular.

“You’re throwing out the rest of the cigarettes,” she said placidly, in the same ‘I Am Deadly Serious Right Now, Tony, Shut The Fuck Up’ voice that Pepper used sometimes. Tony had to hide a shiver.

“There’s only two left,” Tony replied. He tried to make it sound flippant, casual, but his voice came out thick and cracking.

Natasha packed everything away efficiently, and then smacked him upside the head, sitting down right across from him. She tossed the packet of pills in her hand at his head, and they bounced off his eyebrow to flop on the table. He swallowed the tablets of activated charcoal without a sound, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.

Then Tony pouted as fiercely as he knew how, arms crossed tightly across his chest, knees propped up near his stomach, glaring at the tabletop.

“Do you want to talk about what happened,” Natasha said evenly. It wasn’t really a question, more of a demand.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Tony muttered, not looking away from the counter.

“I’m inclined to disagree,” Natasha drawled. “This doesn’t look anything like ‘handling it’.” Tony grumbled but didn’t argue.

They sat in silence. Tony wasn’t good at silence.

“I just never thought about it before. What if.”

He didn’t have to clarify, not this particular ‘what if’. Natasha understood, even though she _was_ bonded.

The silence continued, but it wasn’t quite as oppressive. Tony’s bones felt hollow, and he was sure it was the nicotine, because there was no way he was in _shock_ , or had some kind of PTSD…

“Come on,” Natasha said abruptly, standing, “Let’s go.” She took Tony’s hand properly this time, and pulled him to the elevators.

“Where are we going?” Tony asked mildly, too caught up in the feeling of her strong hand folded around his to want it to stop.

“The gym. You’re going to let me throw you around the mat for a while. It’ll make me feel better.”

“Oh, well. With an argument like that, how could I refuse.”

Tony had several feelings about sparring with Natasha – really, about Natasha in general. Most of those feelings were fear feelings, because she was scary as all hell. Tony generally tried to deny that any of those feelings might be Pack feelings, because Tony liked to pretend that he was a Lone Wolf and happy that way.

Still, he couldn’t deny that training with Natasha, and Clint, and Steve and Thor and _Coulson_ , made Tony feel safer, and cherished, like his Pack wanted to keep him badly enough that they were going to make sure he could take care of himself.

And, wow, did they make sure Tony could ‘take care of himself’.

Mostly by throwing him into the mats as hard as they could as many times as they could, which didn’t seem particularly helpful to Tony, but hey, who was he to judge?

Thirty-three-and-a-half minutes later, when he was face down on the floor for the millionth time, Tony started to question which of his previous life decisions might have lead him to this spot.

It seemed to be all of them. Seriously, _all_ of them.

He groaned to demonstrate his visceral displeasure with _life_ , and Natasha smacked him – gently, for her – in acknowledgement.

“You’re getting better,” she reassured him, and he snorted.

“For a limited definition of ‘better’,” he sighed, spreading his arms out across the padded floor. He’d managed to get his legs tangled around Natasha’s so that when he went down, she came with him. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d done it on purpose.

Tony decided he would just stay here for a while, letting his sweat soak into the mat – he would pretend he was still on the ground because he was… scenting the gym. Because Tony frequently went around and scent-marked random items in the Tower in an over-compensatory show of dominance. Because his name was ‘Clint Barton’.

Natasha just hummed, tugging at the tangle of their legs until their knees and shins settled a little more comfortably against each other, and flopped back down to the mat. There was a brief moment of silence, and then something whistled through the air, landing next to Tony’s ear with a thud. There was another whistle, and another thud, this time in a slightly different position. Whistle, thud. Whistle, thud. Whistle, thud.

This was his life now, being soothed into a light doze by the sound of the deadliest assassin in the world practice her knife throwing less than an inch from his ear.

Whistle… _thud_.

Tony tilted his head a little more to the side, allowing air to wind its way into his lungs with less effort on his part.

He watched the knife spiral into the air out of the corner of his eye, and then _thunk_ into the ground point first. Natasha pried it free with a soft _snick_ , and tossed it again. Tony watched the pattern of nicks grow in the floor until a shape started to emerge.

He snorted, and then started to chuckle.

Natasha was carving her Widow sigil into his floor in the most bad-ass way he could imagine. Because of course she was.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of insane?” Tony teased, letting his lids fall closed until she was just a smudge of red and black next to his hip.

She pounced on him, disappearing and reappearing between one blink and the next. She landed knees-first on his back, lightly enough not to wind him but sharply enough to hurt. He winced, but laughed when she growled playfully in his ear.

He growled back not-so-playfully when she bit him, hard enough to leave a mark on the edge of his jaw.

“Woah, hey, easy with the biting, Widow,” Tony grumbled, rubbing his face. “I happen to like crazy people. They’re probably my favourite kind of people.”

Natasha snorted, settling her whole weight down on his back. Tony huffed – for such a tiny person, she was frighteningly _solid_ , and while the arc reactor in his chest meant that the extra weight on his back wouldn’t be bearable for very long, there was something about the world’s deadliest assassin curling up on his back for a nap that was… reassuring. Grounding. _Warm safe pack mate friend._

Fuck, Tony hated his goddamned Pack instincts. Especially when the grumbling in the back of his head telling him to throw Natasha off was appeased as soon as she began licking carefully over the mark she’d left on his jaw, the mark Rhodey’d left on his neck, the mark Steve had left on his throat.

Christ, anyone who saw him now would think he was such a fucking _whore_ , letting his Pack mark him up and pass him around, fuck him ‘til they were satisfied and then put him away wet –

Tony shook himself with a growl. Natasha growled back, clamping her teeth down on his bicep through the thin cotton of his ragged band t-shirt and curling her fingers painfully into his ribs. He flexed in her sharp grip, wanting to twist and pin her beneath him, force her to expose her belly and throat, show her who was head bitch around here –

Instead he leaned into the caress, the gentlest Natasha knew how to give, and let her hold him, just for a little while.

Just until he could breathe again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I felt your arms twistin' around me; it's all fun and games 'til somebody loses their mind._

Tony tried not to fidget as he waited in the security office for Coulson. He allowed his eyes to skip over the feed of Rhodey in his cell _without_ staring obsessively, trying to divide his time between watching Rhodey and watching Clint, and watching everything else, but he was really using the time between glances to memorize and catalogue every detail about Rhodey’s room that he could.

They hadn’t changed the bedding. The fitted sheet and pillow cases were still rumpled and stained – the room must still smell like Rhodey-and-him.

There had been a table and two chairs added to the room at some point – Rhodey was lucid enough to allow people who weren’t Tony to enter the room, and to want the familiarity of sitting at a table.

There was a TV, but no books – he was bored, and too anxious to read.

Tony shifted the pizza box resting on his right hand to his left, trying to shake out the trembling in his fingers. His heart thudded loudly in his ears and it felt like the arc reactor was _wheezing_ in his chest. He blamed it on the residual nicotine poisoning. Tachycardia followed by a work-out followed by bradycardia did not a happy heart condition make. Natasha was the worst First Aider _ever_ and he was never letting her help him ever again.

Tony’s eyes snapped helplessly to Rhodey’s feed when the other man stood, beginning to pace out the dimensions of his room, tapping his fingers on the sheets thoughtfully whenever he passed the bed.

Tony couldn’t tell what Rhodey was thinking. Tony couldn’t tell what _he_ was thinking. That was probably a bad thing.

Tony wasn’t famous for making good decisions, but talking to Rhodey could never be a bad one… right?

He didn’t turn when the door clicked open behind him, waiting for Coulson to speak first. He stared at the corner of the flat box in his hands, focusing intently on peeling a thin layer of paper away from the cardboard.

He held out for a handful of moments, but Tony wasn’t very good at _quiet_.

“How is he?”

Coulson hummed. “Better. Clearer. Still a little growly now and then, but he knows who he is. And what happened between the two of you.”

Tony grunted. “What about Hydra?”

“He’s been asking to see you,” Coulson said, almost as if he hadn’t heard Tony at all.

“He hasn’t said anything.”

“To be fair, he’s been a little… distracted,” Coulson said delicately. “He won’t let us take the sheets out.”

Tony grunted again. “And Clint? How is he doing?”

“Better than Rhodey,” Coulson sighed, finally moving up so that Tony could just catch him in his peripheral vision. “We don’t know if that’s training, or the difference in their hormone levels, or the bond, but he’s talking. He remembers.”

“Does Rhodey not _remember_?” Tony choked; eyes flying helplessly back to the pacing Rhodey in the fuzzy screen. What had they _done_ to him?

“Honestly, we have no idea. Like I said, he’s not talking.”

“He’ll talk to me,” Tony said, pointedly not asking if he was allowed to see Rhodey.

“We hope so,” Coulson muttered rather darkly, but gestured for Tony to follow him when he left the room. They made their way silently to the brig, where Tony walked himself back through the air-locked doors he’d been carried out of just thirty-six hours ago. He paused in-between the two doors, just to give himself a second to breathe – and to do a smell test. He’d avoided the legions of Alphas that had taken over his tower like the plague, which had been a lot harder to do than he’d anticipated.

There was only the faintest trace of Steve-Bruce-Clint clinging to his skin, the Pack scent that never quite washed away, but Natasha had marked him thoroughly as though to make up for the lack just before he left the tower.

The second door slid open in front of him. Tony couldn’t help taking an automatic deep breath, scenting the new environment. The scent of _Rhodey heat sweat sex_ hit him like a punch in the heart, but Tony’d stood firm in the face of much worse. He wouldn’t give in to instinct, he knew better than that.

_Stark men are made of iron_ , he reminded himself sternly, strutting into the room.

Rhodey was already staring at him, standing far enough from the door to not be overtly threatening, but he was giving off an undeniable air of _hovering._

“Tony,” he sighed, sounding relieved and anxious all at once.

“Sugarplum! How are we today?” Tony said brightly, spinning the pizza onto the table and flopping into one of the chairs. He waited for Rhodey to take the hint, but when he didn’t, Tony flipped the lid of the box back sharply, nudging it closer to Rhodey.

“Fine, Tony, _I’m_ fine, but you – “

“Nu-uh, honey bear,” Tony interrupted, “Shop talk first. Coulson says you’re not talking to SHIELD about what happened?”

Rhodey hesitated, and then inched closer, standing just behind the other chair. “It’s all such a mess, Tones. Some days, it feels like I was barely there for hours, some days it’s more like years.”

Tony winced sympathetically, remembering how obsessively he’d tracked his hours in the cave, terrified that he would lose time, and therefore himself. Yinsen had helped – counting the minutes that Tony slept, counting the hours that he was tortured, counting the days he lost to fear.

“I know, Rhodey,” he said softly, stretching one foot out to push Rhodey’s chair a little farther from the table, gesturing for him to sit. “You know that I know. Just try?”

Rhodey sighed, and sat, finally taking a slice of pizza from the box. Tony’d even made sure to get the disgusting kind Rhodey loved best, some vile concoction with no meat and _no tomato sauce_. It made Tony sad to the very depths of his withered Italian soul.

“I was drugged up to my eyeballs most of the time. Uppers to get me going in the morning. Downers to knock me out at night. All secondary to some kind of experimental shit. I’d get detoxed every once in a while. Not that I was addicted, it wasn’t the kind of drug that created a physiological or psychological dependence, it just didn’t have the greatest long-term effects. I never saw Clint – didn’t even know he’d been nabbed until we were rescued and the two of us shared a bus out of the compound.”

Tony waited to see if Rhodey would say anything else, and then waited for him to finish his slice of pizza when it was obvious that he wouldn’t.

“Do you know what they were drugging you with?”

Rhodey stiffened, picking up another slice before meeting Tony’s eyes steadily. “Whatever it was I was on when they pulled us out. They were making it. Testing it on me. Us, I guess.”

Tony was very careful to hide the way that his hands clenched under the table. “Did you know what the drug was meant to do?”

“Oh, yeah. They had Omegas there, Tones.” Rhodey’s whole face tightened with rage, even though he took several deep breaths before continuing, “Some willing, sycophants, all ‘Hail Hydra!’ and subservience.”

“But not all of them.”

“No, Tony,” Rhodey growled, “Not all of them.”

Tony nodded shortly, careful to keep his body language loose and open, though all he really wanted to do was suit up and burn something to the ground. There had to be _something_ left to destroy that the Hulk had missed.

“Did they mention what they were planning to do with the drug?”

“Specifically? No,” Rhodey snorted. He ate another slide of pizza in three bites. Tony hid a smug smile. “But use your imagination, Tones. A drug that will turn any Alpha who’s exposed into a Rut-frenzied animal? Could you imagine the chaos shit like that could cause? In the Army? In parliament? In a hospital, or a school or –“

“Hey,” Tony snapped, leaning forward to curl his fingers carefully over Rhodey’s wrist. “We’re not going to let that happen, okay?”

Rhodey snorted, but relaxed, turning his hand over to stroke Tony’s pulse gently. Tony let him.

“And you’re not an animal, Rhodey. Okay? Never,” Tony said fiercely, staring at Rhodey until he made eye contact. He nodded stiffly in acknowledgement.

“Are you going to let me apologize for what happened?” Rhodey bit out stiffly, pulling his hand away from Tony’s.

Tony tried to ignore the pang in his chest at that. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

Rhodey _growled_ , surprising Tony so much that he had to look up.

“You have to – God, Tones, we _can’t_ keep doing this, tell me you get that?” Rhodey almost yelled.

“Doing what?” Tony snapped, crossing his arms over his chest.

“This! This thing where we have sex, and then I try to bite you, and then ‘the morning after’ I apologize because that’s what you _want_ , but you blow it off like it _isn’t_ –“

“It isn’t!” Tony cried. “Why would I want you to apologize, I hate it when you apologize for _that_ , it’s not your fault, you can’t help it, it’s just instinct –“

“It isn’t, though,” Rhodey murmured, suddenly sounding so tired. “It isn’t, Tony. It really isn’t.”

The following silence was heaving and edemic. The constant rumble of the Helicarrier’s engine was a high-pitched whine in Tony’s ears.

“What are you saying, Rhodey?”

“Look, Tony… Are you ever going to want it? Being Bonded? With me? If I asked, would you say yes?”

“What the fuck is this,” Tony hissed, shoving his chair backwards, “What the fuck are you doing –“

“Because I’m asking, Tony. Right now,” Rhodey continued, though he didn’t try to chase Tony.

“You can’t just – “ Tony said before irrational panic choked his words back – it was irrational, this fear. He knew that, he knew it was. He knew that Rhodey would never do to him what Howard had done to Maria, never trap him in an empty house and an emptier marriage, never lose himself to the bottom of a bottle and the spectre of a hero, never – Wouldn’t be like Obie, with his greasy wandering hands and possessive scent-marking, long before and long after Tony had a scent to cover, his subtle backstabbing and his grander betrayals –

But that didn’t stop the panic from being real. From being over-powering.

“Rhodey,” he choked out, “Rhodey, I _can’t_.”

Rhodey nodded, like that didn’t surprise him at all. “I know that, sweetheart. But I can’t keep waiting for you.”

Tony jerked sharply. “I _never_ asked you for that,” he snarled.

Rhodey lifted his hands placatingly. “I know, Tones, I know. That was all me, hoping that one day you’d change your mind. That you’d be ready _eventually_. And, well. If you _were_ going to be ready eventually, what was the point in waiting?”

Rhodey paused, and took a deep breath, as though gathering his courage to say whatever it was he wanted to say next. Tony resisted the urge to cover his ears desperately with both hands, to press his palms against his skull until it hurt and sing until he couldn’t hear.

When Rhodey finally spoke, it was just a whisper. “Why not just bond you, and then deal with the fall-out, for a couple of weeks, or months? Do you see, Tony? Do you understand?”

Tony nodded numbly. “So, not _quite_ instinct. Not completely.” Tony did understand. He understood viscerally. It was only a story he heard every day, Omegas bonded against their will to brutish Alphas they’d never met, to their high-school sweetheart who just didn’t ask in the heat of the moment, to friends of the family who’d battered for their life like it was a piece of meat.

“Not completely,” Rhodey agreed with a self-loathing smile, “And more than a little rape-y.”

Tony didn’t have anything to say to that. He pulled his chair back up to the table, taking a slice of the cooling pizza from the box.

“Rhodey –“

“You didn’t find any of them, did you?” Rhodey asked suddenly. “The other prisoners?”

Tony shook his head. “No, Rhodey. Just you and Clint. They thought it was weird, but… The two of you were so feral, all they could do was get you out of there and in lock-down as soon as they could.”

“How is Clint?”

Tony shook his head with a rueful laugh. “Better than you, honey-buns. I don’t think his booty-call with Natasha was, uh. Interrupted.”

Rhodey’s face darkened at the reminder, though whether it was memories of Steve or memories of everything else that was dragging him down, Tony couldn’t say.

“Were you really waiting?” Tony asked after a short but very uncomfortable silence. “For me? All this time?”

“Mostly? Yeah,” Rhodey sighed. “I mean there were a few other Omegas, especially in college, but after meeting you, I wouldn’t have considered bonding any of them.”

“Even when, even with Pepper?” Tony said tentatively.

Rhodey snorted. “Pepper’s always been part of our Pack. Me, Pepper, and Happy, we had a whole rhythm to life, to dealing with you and your insanity. I wouldn’ta minded sharing with her. _Didn’t_ mind it, in fact, the one time it happened.”

“So the fact that I never even let Pepper bind me never clued you in?”

“Nah, man, I started to give up hope when I saw the way you was eyein’ _Steve_ ,” Rhodey drawled, his tense scowl melting into a grin.

Tony spluttered like a wet cat. “Steve? _Steve?_ Like, Captain Star Spangled Man with a Plan? What exactly about Mr. Stick-Up-His-Ass screams ‘Tony’s Type'?”

Rhodey laughed. “You invited all of the Avengers to _move in with you_ , Tony. You made them _your Pack_ , as in, a Pack that you now have joint responsibility of. You’ve already fucked Steve, you’re days away from fucking Natasha unless I’ve missed my guess, you and Bruce have been mind-fucking since the day you met, what part are you confused about?”

Tony considered that for a minute. “I fucking _hate_ pack instincts,” he grumbled.

“Well, you’d better re-think your position on that, man, because your Pack-Leadership Aptitudes must be off the fucking charts, and you don’t even realize it.”

“I think you just called me socially competent, Rhodey, which just…” Tony shook his head. “I think we oughta get you checked out.”

Rhodey laughed again. “Tony, man, you literally just brought me food. _You are actually providing for my needs_. The entire time we’ve known each other, never once did you show up at my place without food, or beer, or some new appliance. Remember that time you came over to my dorm to fix the boiler, just because it wouldn’t heat the place above sixty-six degrees in the dead of winter? Really, I think it’s sweet.”

Tony snatched the box up, closing it sharply. “See if I ever do anything nice for _you_ ever again.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Seriously, man, there’s nothing wrong with wanting a Pack. With knowing that people have your back –“

Tony rolled his eyes back so hard it almost hurt. “Please, Rhodey, spare me. I don’t need _babysitting_.” He hissed the last word like a curse.

“It’s not _babysitting_ , Tony,” Rhodey snapped, “It’s _instinct_. It’s _natural_. Humans aren’t meant to be alone all the time, man, it ain’t right.”

“Oh, please, go on,” Tony snorted, “Tell me about what a freak I am, sugar plum, you think I’m _broken_ , don’t you, _‘Poor wittle Omega Tony, needs a big, strong, Alpha to take care of him’…_ ”

“Shut up, you know I’ve never thought that a day in my life-“

“You think I’m helpless, admit it, you’ve always thought that I couldn’t make it a day without you or Pepper to look out for me-“

“I’ve never said that, stop fucking putting words in my mouth-“

“I just need a _Pack_ , if I just had a _family_ , maybe I wouldn’t be such a colossal fuck-up, is that what it is? If I just dumbed myself down to _your level_ , let myself be run by instinct and hormones, then everything would be better right? I don’t _need_ a Pack, I don’t _need_ help, and I _certainly_ don’t. need. a. fucking. mate!”

Rhodey stared at him, taken aback, before his face melted into a sneer. “Well, you’ve just got it all figured out, haven’t you? Got _me_ all figured out. No, no, I get it, you’ve always been the smart one. I must seem so pathetic to you, dumb Alpha soldier, riddled in _instinct_ and _sentiment_ , fighting and killing for my Pack for a living. How _useless_.”

“Well, you said it, not me,” Tony replied flippantly.

Rhodey slammed his hands down on the table as he stood, looming over Tony. “Shut. Up.”

Tony leaned forward, tilting his chin up further to maintain eye contact with Rhodey. He ignored the extremely tired voice in the back of his head trying to tell him this was a bad idea. His self-restraint eventually threw up its hands in defeat, leaving him to his fate.

“You don’t even see it, do you? How dependent they make you, how _weak_. And what for? Wars aren’t fought with soldiers anymore, with boots on the ground. What do they need to keep you around for anyway? Do you ever wonder, Rhodey? Wonder why they think packs make everything better? It couldn’t be because packs drive your instincts up. Especially packs with no Omegas. Sure, they’re a little unstable, but no big deal, right? Soldiers are supposed to be violent. Supposed to be dominant. Bloodthirsty.”

“That’s not how it is,” Rhodey protested, but Tony didn’t let him speak anymore.

“It makes me wonder, Rhodes. What the Army would pay to get their hands on the drug you and Barton got dosed with. You said it yourself, _‘Imagine the chaos shit like that could cause’_ , only you seem to think that the Army doesn’t want to use that for its own purposes… Tell me you’re not that stupid, Rhodey.”

“Out. Get out,” he commanded, shaking. Tony smirked and left the room, taking half a cold pizza with him.

He dumped it behind a wall panel on his way out of the Helicarrier, not interested in eating.

He blamed the nausea on the nicotine poisoning.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it wasn't already obvious to you, I wrote most of this story while rocking out to Taylor Swift's new album. I have so far resisted the urge to write a scene where Tony dances on the bar singing at the top of his lungs
> 
>  
> 
> _"'CAUSE BABY I COULD BUILD A CA-ASTLLLLLE, OUT OF ALL THE BRICKS THEY THREW AT MEEE-EEEE! AND EVERY DAY IS LIKE A BA-ATLLLLLE, BUT EVERY NIGHT WITH US IS LIKE A DREE-EEAAM!"_
> 
>  
> 
> Because you know he's digging the T-Swizzle. 
> 
> Tony Stark knows what's up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If you live like that, you live with ghosts._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really really sorry this is so late (if there's anyone still reading this)
> 
> ...
> 
> Would you guys believe I actually kind of forgot to finish this chapter? I know, I'm awful!
> 
> I promise to try harder to keep to _some_ kind of schedule.

Tony sat at the kitchen counter, a new package of cigarettes open in front of him, one lit and held carefully in his hand. A small pile of ash had tumbled free of the end and pooled on the counter, but Tony continued to just let it burn down.

Plausible deniability. If Natasha caught him, he could say that he wasn’t actually smoking the cigarette. He was just… smelling the smoke.

But it was Steve who eventually came around the corner, cheeks flushed and practically prancing with joy after his morning run.

Tony didn’t know if this was better or worse than being found by Natasha.

Steve stiffened when he saw Tony.

Tony decided this was worse.

“Hey, Tony,” Steve greeted, overly-casual. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“Neither did I,” Tony admitted, finally giving in and taking a long drag on the cigarette. His lungs protested immediately, reminding him pointedly that several square inches of metal in his chest did in fact restrict his lung capacity quite a lot. Still, it was better than the sense-memory of Steve, sweating and panting and positively _dripping_ with pheromones - He inhaled another lungful. His throat locked up around a chest-rattling cough.

“Disgusting habit,” Steve teased haltingly, smiling as he settled across from Tony with a bottle of water the size of his arm and a glass of some kind of protein-booster thing.

Tony flicked the pack towards Steve. “I could say the same about your runs. You come back dragging dirt and mug and _sweat_ all over my pristine tower, but you never hear me complaining.”

Steve laughed, pushing the cigarettes back towards Tony. “You complain _all the time,_ Tony. And I definitely don’t smoke.”

“Oh, c’mon Steve, sure you do,” Tony drawled. “I promise, cigarettes are better than they were in the forties. Not better _for you_ , granted. But better.”

“I highly doubt that,” Steve said dryly. “Besides, I didn’t smoke in the fourties either, so it’s not like I would know the difference.”

It was Tony’s turn to laugh. “Oh, c’mon, Stevie, don’t be shy. You were a _soldier_ , of course you smoked. Maybe not chronically, but you wouldn’t have passed over the chance for some pack-bonding by passing around a cigarette or two. Plus, didn’t doctors back in the Stone Age think that cigarettes would actually help with asthma? You must have had them prescribed at some point, with lungs bad as yours.”

Steve blinked at him, surprised. “You know I had asthma?”

“You had a lot of shit, Steve,” Tony corrected. He lit a new cigarette, holding it out for Steve temptingly. “I was just most surprised by the asthma. Takes a tough kid to battle through basic training without a good set of lungs. Hell, it’s hard enough _with_ a perfectly functioning pair.”

Steve snorted. “What would _you_ know about basic training?”

“Spent a lot of time on military bases with Dad as a kid,” Tony shrugged, “Mom used to force us to spend time together ‘sharing an activity’, like it would help us ‘bond’, or some bullshit like that. Mostly it involved me following Dad around while he worked and not getting in the way. I guess he decided going through boot camp would put some hair on my chest, or something.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Steve mused, eyeing him speculatively. Tony just shrugged, waving the cigarette in Steve’s face until the soldier took it from him, holding it reluctantly between his thumb and forefinger.  

“I was about as awful at it as you probably _are_ imagining. Still, that’s how I met Rhodey, so it’s not like it was all bad.”

Steve’s face spasmed, as though torn between a violent scowl and wide-eyed surprise – but in the end, his curiosity must have won out because he asked, “They let an Omega train with the Alpha recruits?”

Steve flushed as soon as the words left his mouth, realizing his question might not have been completely politically correct, but Tony just flicked his fingers.

“No, they didn’t. They still don’t. Not really. But it’s not like there are any ‘Omega friendly’ training programs regardless. God knows we’re all just trembling flower petals, ready to collapse at the slightest breeze, no one in their right mind would let Omegas serve in the army. Not in active combat, at any rate.”

Steve opened his mouth, like he was going to protest, argue against what Tony was saying, because ‘it’s not true, Tony, I would never think that you or Natasha were less capable than myself or Clint or Bruce or Thor it’s not my fault that the majority of the team are Alphas/Super-Soldier Alphas/Giant-Green-Rage-Alphas/Whatever-The-Asgardian-Equivalent-To-Alphas-Is, they’re just better fighters and you and Natasha are good fighters too, not like other Omegas, you’re not one of _them_.’

Ugh. Gag him with a spoon, Tony was not even kind of in the mood for Steve’s particular brand of earnest, misguided reassurances today.

“Besides,” Tony continues loudly, “It’s not like I had presented yet. So. I doubt Daddy dearest ever informed them that all was not exactly as it appeared.”

Steve blinked at him, caught off guard. “Did… Did you not know what you were until you presented?”

Tony snorted. “No, we knew,” he said shortly, hoping his tone of voice would cut off any further questions. “I was scanned as soon as I hit puberty.”

Steve nodded gravely, as though the concept of ‘scanning’ wasn’t entirely foreign to him.

Tony wasn’t in the mood to answer any more of Cap’s naïve questions about the ‘new world order’, couldn’t stand to look at the man and dance around the memories of writhing beneath him,  begging for his fingers and his cock, grinding down onto his tongue –

Tony stood with a sharp nod, abandoning his cigarettes without a backwards glance.

+++

Tony left out that he wasn’t _going_ to be scanned, that Mom was against it and Howard didn’t care, because _of course_ Tony was an Alpha, the Starks hadn’t produced an Omega son _ever_ , and the Carbonell Omegas were also known for producing true-gendered children, there was no question that Tony would be anything but a Primary Alpha.

Then, fourteen year-old Tony had failed to snarl back at his raging, drunken father, instead backing down from the fight and presenting his neck on instinct –

Howard had been on him in an instant, shoving Tony to the ground, hauling him up and throwing him against walls, fingers digging and scratching at his skin, trying to provoke his ‘useless, stupid, fucking twink of a son’ to fight back, to challenge Howard and prove that he was just as Alpha, just as strong, just as powerful.

He hadn’t. Tony’d wanted to, he did, wanted to be able to snarl and snap at his father, hit him and hurt him in return, but his body wasn’t _listening_ to him, kept giving in to instinct and cowering before the Alpha’s fury.

It had been Maria that stepped in eventually, her fragile, willowy body slipping between father and son, hands fisted and fangs flashing. She’d never put a hand on Howard, never said a word, but Howard had still been the one to back down and walk away.

As soon as Tony was healed enough to walk into a doctor’s office without raising suspicions, he was taken for the scan, to determine once and for all what Tony already knew.

He was never going to be what his father wanted.

He was never going to be… _enough_.

+++

Tony teetered his way into the kitchen several days later, navigating the slippery floors and random steps of the penthouse with his eyes closed, wincing every time his body lurched as he desperately tried to keep his feet under him.

Coffee. He needed so much coffee.

Avoiding a super-soldier dead-set on talking about his feelings was challenging enough (except not actually challenging because Tony was a genius and JARVIS was so totally on his side), but when you threw in a Russian ninja-spy who was determined _he_ talk about _his_ feelings with said super-soldier, and suddenly Tony was forced to test highly dangerous explosives in the bunker several stories below the underground garage of Stark Tower.

Natasha was pretty much the scariest person he’d ever met and so avoiding her was never really a good idea – if she wanted to talk to you, the best thing for your general health was just to suck it up and let her talk to you – but Tony was proven to be less than preoccupied by his general health, so he went right ahead and avoided her until it couldn’t really be helped.

Also, he was pretty sure she was going to go into heat which meant – _don’t think about it, don’t think about it._

“Good morning, Tony.”

Tony nearly jumped out of his skin, but his heart (mostly) settled back into his ribcage when he realized it was the _other_ person he was avoiding that was speaking to him now. Still. Fucking hell. He could not catch a break.

He peered blearily at Steve from his position beside the fridge, hating him for his cheerful fucking face, with its cheerful fucking smile and his cheerful fucking eyes and the whole general _cheerfulness_ of Steve, as though he thought that mornings were fantastic and that there should be more of them.

If Steve had his way, there would probably be four or five mornings every single day which would mean it would never be night time and then Tony would never get any work done –

And it was possible Tony needed more sleep.

He grunted at Steve, contemplating giving up on being awake – after all, the past ten minutes he’d been trying it weren’t really working in his favour – when the rest of the sounds and smells of the kitchen started to vie for his attention.

Someone was deep-frying something. Tony approved of all deep fried things. Especially when the person doing the aforementioned approved deep-frying was Bruce.

Tony also approved of Bruce.

He went and poured himself onto a stool on the other side of the island from where Bruce was standing, just inches from the deep-fryer and its delicious treasures. Tony curled his hands over the edge of the counter and lowered his shoulders until his nose was just level with his fingers.

His eyes flickered hungrily between Bruce and the food, which looked like pakoras – _Not breakfast time then_ – begging the best way he knew how. Bruce especially could not ignore him when he made his eyes all gigantic and round like this.

A pakora appeared in front of him.

Tony perked up immediately, and the fired dough disappeared in seconds. He ducked back down behind the edge of the counter, this time tilting his head so his overly-long curls flopped onto his forehead.

Bruce huffed, deliberately not looking at Tony. He sank a little lower, pushing just the right amount of fake tears to the surface to make his eyes wet.

Two more pakoras were placed on the counter.

They disappeared just as quickly as the other.

“Oh my God!” Bruce cried, laughing. “I’ll feed you, I promise, just stop with the eyes, I can’t take it anymore!”

Tony held the puppy eyes for just a few more seconds and, when the offering of food was made once again, smirked triumphantly. He flopped forwards onto the counter, not caring that the hard granite edge dug into his ribs. He munched on the pakora, nudging it into his mouth slowly. His eyes drifted shut, the sounds of Bruce cooking and fussing soothing his poor abused body back to sleep.

He was almost able to forget that Steve was in the room.

Until Steve touched him.

Tony spun off of the stool, out from under Steve’s heavy hand on his shoulder and to the other end of the counter before Steve realized Tony wasn’t turning _towards_ him to attack.

They stared at each other over Steve’s crossed arms, raised defensively in front of his face, both completely still. Tony did nothing but curl his lip back in a snarl, revealing the fangs he’d dropped as soon as Steve had made contact.

Eventually Steve relented, as Tony’d known he would, lifting his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Sorry, Tony, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he soothed, which just made Tony want to growl at him, “I just wanted to talk. How are you?”

“Oh, who, little ol’ me?” Tony drawled, “I’m just fine, Steve-o, thanks ever so for asking. If that’s done now, I’ll just be leaving, I have more things that need to be blown up-“

“There’s no need to run away,” came a voice behind Tony, “It’s hardly polite, Tony, we’ve been deprived of your company for _days_ now.”

_Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck,_ Tony swore to himself before looking over his shoulder at Natasha, who was sporting a wide and terrifying grin. So, of course, Tony smiled back like nothing was wrong.

“Tasha! Darling, it’s been ages, we really should catch up,” he gushed, “But another time, because I am just so busy right now, _so_ busy, you don’t even know, so I’ll see your lovely face later.”

He didn’t really expect her to let him leave, and so wasn’t surprised when her hand shot out to grip him around the back of the neck, but he was still getting really, _really_ tired of people thinking they were just allowed to _touch_ him.

Especially _there_ , on his neck, where he was covered in marks and hiding bonding glands and so, _so_ sensitive, where the right stroking or a firm grip would turn him into submissive puddle of goo -

Tony wasn’t as fast as Natasha was, he knew that, but she wasn’t as fast as Steve either, and so he was _just_ fast enough to turn into her arm, one hand pushing in on her elbow to force it to bend and the other flying up to cover her windpipe. She was already pushing back against him by the time he had her pinned against the counter, back arched slightly over the smooth surface. They froze like that, arms twisted around each other, Natasha’s foot braced against Tony’s knee, ready to snap it, Tony’s finger’s curled threateningly over Natasha’s throat.

“Stop. Touching. Me,” Tony growled, looming over her petite frame. She was the only other one of the team small enough for this to be even slightly effective.

“You like it,” Natasha purred, smirking impossibly up at him, “You _want_ it. It’s reassuring, isn’t it? To be welcomed, there’s nothing wrong with wanting that –“

Tony shoved her, the closest he could get to shaking her without giving her any more leverage.

They kept _doing_ that, all of them, even Natasha now, treating him like he was _theirs_ , theirs to touch and theirs to keep and theirs to _own_ –

“You are not the Pack’s Omega,” Tony hissed, baring his fangs, “ _I_ am. You don’t get to reassure _me_ , or offer me _sanctuary_ , or welcome _me_ , okay, that’s _my_ job, _my_ right –“

“Then do it!” Natasha sneered, her own fangs finally extending, “Do it, Tony, come on, I dare you. ‘Take up the mantel’, lead this pack, be our family… If you think you can.”

Tony scoffed. “Are you _challenging_ me, Natasha? Let’s be real here, just for a second.” He leant down, close enough to scent her properly, holding her gaze the whole time. He saw her nostrils flare in response, taking in his own scent. “No, no you couldn’t do it, could you? You’ve faked it before, played at being a real Omega, but you can’t do it, can you? You can’t even begin to guess what it means, being a Pack’s Omega. You can’t do it.”

Her chin jerked up stubbornly. “I’ll do it if you won’t, Tony. This pack needs an Omega.”

“We are not a _pack_ ,” Tony snarled, tightening his hand around her neck enough to hurt but not enough to bruise before dropping her completely and stalking out of the room.

His hearing was just sensitive enough that, right before the elevator doors close behind him, he could hear Bruce say, “And _this_ is why I've never wanted to be part of a pack.”

If Tony’s chest tightened around some small, awful feeling, he ignored it.

After all, he did have a heart condition.  


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Even God don't know where we're going, and I sure as hell don't care..._

Tony slipped into the lounge of his penthouse, idly humming one of Pepper’s favourite songs under his breath as he tapped out a text message to her, both thumbs pattering across the screen of his Starkphone as line after line of text scrolled through the message box… Maybe he’d be better off sending an email…

He froze in the middle of his next inhale, finally registering the ozone-and-Alpha scent that just about saturated his apartment. A helpless smile carved itself across his face.

If any one of the other Alpha’s had tried to mark his home like this he would have erased them so hard their great-grandparents’ graves would disappear…

But this was just Thor – the big guy couldn’t help it.

Also, it was a little-known scientific fact that hating Thor was actually impossible.

Exhibit A: The ginormous Norse God of Thunder was currently curled up on the floor, trying to wedge his massive frame into the window-well of one of the penthouse’s floor-to-ceiling windows, giving exactly zero fucks that _everyone_ knew Alphas _never_ made themselves look _smaller_ than they actually were. Not that anyone could ever mistake Thor for _small_.

Tony made his way over to Thor quietly, his socked feet almost silent on the hardwood floor – he had no delusions that Thor didn’t already know he was here, but he had made no move to acknowledge Tony, and so Tony did his best not to disrupt him.

Thor was tilted towards the window, his forehead and one hand pressed against the glass. It looked like he was watching the snow fall…

Tony walked around Thor so he was clearly in the warrior’s line of sight before he sat down, mirroring Thor’s position, but about a foot away from the glass. It was cold enough already, thanks, he didn’t need to be going around pressing his warm body up against chilly glass like some kind of crazy person.

He looped his arms around his shins, and leaned his chin against one knee, content to wait. Thor was being the kind of quiet that screamed _engagecomforthomesafepack_ to his Omega instincts, and while he usually tried to ignore that kind of thing on principle, Tony didn’t feel like walking away today.

They sat in silence for a long time, long enough for Tony to start to drift, his eyes falling to half-mast and thoughts slowing as he let himself go, let himself bask in Thor’s steady presence and heady, electrifying scent. Tony'd been doing something, he knew he had been, but it didn’t matter right now.

Thor needed him right now.

Tony swayed forward the tiniest bit, inhaling deeply. He let his breath out in a huge sigh, the exhalation echoed by Thor.

The shift in Thor’s breathing seemed to break some kind of spell for Tony, and he shook off the lingering lethargy produced by the Asgardian’s overwhelming scent with only mild irritation. Thor didn’t know what his scent did to human Omegas, so he never did anything about it, which meant that it was okay that every once in a while his rainstorm-and-copper smell put Tony into a headspace he wasn’t entirely comfortable with.

Thor hadn’t moved at all, didn’t look in Tony’s direction, but somehow, Tony knew it was okay to talk now.

“Hey, Johnny Bravo,” he murmured, trying not to disrupt the quiet, “What are you thinking about so hard?”

Thor’s impressive brow didn’t do the little wrinkly thing it had before when Tony made pop-culture references he didn’t understand, and Tony had to wonder just how many cartoons Darcy had forced the poor guy to watch during his extended vacation in New Mexico.

“I am merely admiring the snow, my friend,” Thor replied after a long silence. “It is beautiful, is it not? And there is so much of it… Tell me, Anthony, when do you expect the snow fall to cease?”

Tony blinked, surprised. He wouldn’t consider himself the team’s foremost expert on current weather trends. Most of the time, it was a bit of a crap shoot as to whether he knew for sure which month it was.

Luckily, he didn’t need to store useless information like that in his brain – he had a JARVIS. The AI silently unfurled the weather report across the window, highlighting the expected trend of the small storm. Thor didn’t turn his eyes to the display, even though it was only inches from his nose, so Tony read it out for him.

“The snow should stop falling within the next couple hours, big guy. It’s coming down pretty hard, if I had to guess I’d say there’s already a solid ten centimeters of snow down there.”

Thor hummed, the sound reverberating deep in his barrel-like chest until it sounded like thunder.

Tony let the silence fester for just another moment or two, but eventually his very wobbly patience snapped, and he asked:

“What is it about snow that makes you sad, Thor?”

The demigod let out a small sigh. “I did not realize that it snowed in this realm. We have no such weather patterns on Asgard.”

Tony gaped. He couldn’t remember ever _not_ knowing what snow was, even though he’d hated it enough to move himself to Malibu at the earliest opportunity. His mother had hated winter with the passion of a true Mediterranean, but Jarvis – the first Jarvis – had loved it. The first snow of the year would always taste like milky tea and chocolate wafers on the back of Tony’s tongue. He also remembered more than one summer spent scouring Arctic tundras for the faintest traces of metal, or radioactivity, not understanding what he was looking for or why Dad thought it was so important, but he knew enough to help make the machines more sensitive, and that was what mattered to Dad – until he got old enough to understand what exactly Howard was hoping to find, trapped in the ice, and he refused to accompany his father any more.

“Thor… Thor is this your _first time_ seeing snow?”

Thor shook his head, blonde hair drifting across the massive breadth of his shoulders. “No, Friend Stark, it is not. Jotunheim is a frozen wasteland of fantastical ice structures the likes of which you cannot begin to fathom… Other realms with which Asgard has had dealings in the past also experience winter, as you have dubbed it, and experience similar water formations.”

Thor tipped his chin enough to look at Tony out of the corner of his eye, and tiny smile tucked itself into the corner of his mouth.

Tony scooted closer, as though finally invited into the demigod’s space by this quiet acknowledgement. He viciously ignored the twinge of relief he felt because of it.

“So then what is it?” Tony breathed, almost painfully eager for the story. Thor’s attention slid back to the snowflakes drifting past the window.

“I have never enjoyed the cold,” Thor replied, and Tony swallowed his instinctive impatience in the face of one of Thor’s epic tales.

“I actively sought to avoid it, in my youth, so far as my duties allowed me to do so. I much preferred the golden sunshine and cloudless skies of Asgard. When my duties as Prince of Asgard called me to less hospitable places, I stayed indoors when I could and complained bitterly when I could not.

“Many of the Aesir feel thusly. Our history with the Frost Giants of Jotunheim is too dark and charged for us to see past the superficial inhospitability of winter to its inherent beauty.

“However,” and here Thor paused, taking a deep breath. “However, my brother was just as different from the rest of Asgard in this as he was in everything else.”

Tony couldn’t help the instinctual stiffening of his body at the mention of Loki, but deliberately forced himself to relax and scooted closer to Thor, to encourage him to continue.

“Snow and bitter winds seemed to bring my brother alive the way never-ending sunshine never had. I well remember the first time we encountered snow, when we had barely a thousand of your years between us – he was captivated, watching the snow fall from the sky for hours as we travelled from village to village, touring a new realm with which Asgard had established a trade agreement. He was lost to me, off where I could not follow, tracking the dance of snow buffeted by the wind, the way it clung to buildings and trees and froze in delicate crystals… It was magical to him. At the time, I thought he had discovered some great secret that I was not privy to, and I resented it.

“In the end, it turned out that it was not a secret he had discovered, but his home, and with time _he_ would grow to resent _me_ for it.”

They sat in silence for so long that Tony started to wonder what was wrong with him – he _never_ didn’t have something to say.

And so he was as surprised as anyone when the question “Your brother is an Omega, isn’t he?” fell past his lips.

Thor didn’t even flinch at the question though, instead tilting his chin pensively. “I still do not understand the terms ‘Alpha’ and ‘Omega’, with all the nuances each role is prescribed on Midgard… he does not experience the phenomenon you refer to as ‘heat’, but if you speak to his ability to bear children, then yes. He is ‘Omega’.”

Thor finally turned away from the window completely to face Tony head-on. A shockingly sweet smile spread across his face.

“You remind me of him,” he said simply.

Tony couldn’t help but bristle at that, but did manage to bite back his instinctive, indignant retort. This was not the time to get into it with Thor about why he didn’t particularly want to be compared to a sociopathic megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur. There had been more than enough of those in his life already, thanks.

What he said instead was, “You really miss him don’t you?”

Thor merely shrugged. “Of course. He is my brother, just as he has always been, and will always be.”

Tony tipped his head to the side inquisitively. “Even after everything he’s done? I dunno, Point Break, I think there are some things that people don’t get to be forgiven for.”

Thor’s smile didn’t dim at all. There was even laughter in his voice when he replied:

“Anthony, I own bed sheets far older than you. I have worn this very armour since before your great grandfather was born. I have lived for more years than I have bothered to count, and will live for far more than you can fathom. I have an eternity to live, should Valhalla not call me home before my time, and my brother was meant to be at my side for all those many life times. And he will. At the end of all this, he is what I will have. How could I not forgive him?”

“Does he know you feel like that?” Tony couldn’t help but ask after a brief pause.

Thor laughed, shaking his head ruefully. “No, Anthony, it has been rather hard to make him sit and listen to what I have to say.” He turned back to the window, resuming what is so obviously a vigil for his wayward brother that it _almost_ made Tony want to cry.

Instead he stood abruptly, and held his hand out for Thor, curling his fingers impatiently when the morose demigod didn’t immediately take the hint.

“Come on, Goldilocks,” Tony cajoled impatiently. “Let’s go, c’mon, chop chop.”

Thor took his hand with a bemused expression, and Tony quenched the shivery thrill in his stomach when his hand disappeared inside Thor’s gigantic palm.

He tugged ineffectually as the Asgardian stood, mostly to make himself feel like he was helping. Tony didn’t let go of Thor’s hand once he was up, instead tugging him along behind as he charged for the elevator.

“Where is it you are taking me, Anthony?” Thor finally asked gently, apparently amused by Tony.

“We are going to teach you how to have fun in the snow, my friend,” Tony proclaimed, stabbing the button for the gym floor, where he kept the team’s specialized equipment, with far too much enthusiasm. “There will be no more kicked-puppy _moping_ , no way, not on my watch.”

He was going to see Thor in a one-piece snowsuit if it was the last thing he did.

+++

“Okay, see, it’s simple,” Tony said patiently, curling his neck up just enough to look at Thor from where he was lying flat on his back in the snow. “You just lie down, and move your legs and arms to make a dress-toga thing, and then you help me up!” Tony finished with a grin, reaching both hands out to Thor, who bent over obediently to help.

“Oh, wait!” Tony cried, twisting around carefully so as not to disturb his devastatingly attractive snow angel. “I have to give it a halo!” He cut his hand through the space above where his head had been, carving a crude ‘halo’ into the sticky snow before turning back to Thor.

“Okay, _now_ you can help me up.”

_I should have been more specific_ , Tony thought when, without the slightest hesitation, Thor leaned down and scooped Tony up with one tree-trunk arm beneath his knees and another around his back, and cradled him against his massive chest like a toddler.

Tony didn’t try too hard to resist the urge to feel up Thor’s godly pectorals, and was not at all disappointed by their marble-slab like feel.

“And you called this creation a… snow angel? I am sorry, Shield Brother, I am not familiar with the term ‘angel’.”

Tony tipped his head, pondering. He’d never given much thought to angels, or how to explain them – they just sort of… were.

“Uh, well, they’re generally a religious thing, I think… They’re like, holy messengers, or something, from Heaven – the one with the Christian God, not, you know, _you guys_ – and they come down to Earth sometimes to like, protect people, or collect their souls and escort them to Heaven when they die. If they’re good.”

“Ah! Yes! Of course, I know exactly what you speak of!” Thor boomed joyfully right into Tony’s ear. Thor craned his neck out just a bit to the side so that he could see past Tony to the ground. “Though, I have never seen a Valkyrie attired thusly.”

“What? No, no Valkyries, what is a Valkyrie?” Tony asked, squirming just a bit. It wasn’t that he was precisely uncomfortable with being held like this… it was just that he didn’t think it was necessary to do so for so _long_.

Thor took no notice of his discomfort.

“Valkyries! The most fearsome warriors from Valhalla, sent to bring the souls of the truly brave and worthy to the great halls for the final feast! I wish to make my mark upon this land with the image of one such noble creature!”

Tony blinked rapidly.

“Sure, big guy. Whatever. What does a Valkyrie look like?”

Thor opened his mouth to speak, and sounds even came out, but it wasn’t like any language Tony had ever heard – something like Mandarin, if you spoke it with Arabic intonations and a Spanish accent and some Swahili and clicking thrown in for shits and giggles.

“Uhm. Thor. What was that?”

Thor looked puzzled for only a second before his face cleared and he appeared more sheepish. “Ah, I apologize, Anthony. It appears the Allspeak  knows no Midgardian words for the majesty of the Valkyrie.”

“Uhm, okay,” Tony said, deciding to let that one go. He resumed his squirming, but this time Thor let him move, as he wasn’t attempting to get away, just to relocate. He clambered his way around Thor’s massive chest to cling to his back instead, so he could look over Thor’s shoulder at the blank snow-canvas in front of them. “So, maybe tell me instead why a snow-Valkyrie would be different from a snow-angel.”

Thor began eagerly, making expansive gestures with his arms as he attempted to sketch the silhouette he wanted to create in the frigid air in front of them. Tony tightened his arms around Thor’s neck and rested his chin on one broad shoulder, laughing at the Allspeak’s frequent lapses, though Thor showed no sign of caring.

Tony was laughing hysterically during one such incident – judging by Thor’s hand gestures, either the Valkyrie’s were some _very_ busty ladies, or they had _very_ interesting taste in weaponry – when he caught sight of a familiar figure out of the corner of his eye.

“Steve!” he called out, waving frantically to catch his attention, even though Steve couldn’t have _possibly_ missed the-mountain-pretending-to-be-human-ish-that-was-Thor. “You’re here!”

Not even seeing Steve could dampen the good mood generated by playing in the snow with Thor, and Tony was grateful. He couldn’t handle any more stress in his life, he was already getting grey hairs. _Grey hairs_.

Steve had opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he meant to say Tony didn’t hear – at that exact moment, Thor had evidently decided that he knew how to make a snow Valkyrie, and proceeding to do just that by the most expedient method.

Which was, of course, tipping himself face-first into the snow, Tony still clinging to his back.

Tony took a moment after everything stopped shaking to just collect himself, still mostly unsure as to what exactly happened. He’d curled into Thor’s back instinctively when the demigod fell, clinging to his ribs with his knees and gripping his shoulders to the point of pain (Tony’s, not Thor’s) with both hands. He blinked a couple times, and then sat up.

“Tony! _Tony!_ ” Steve was yelling rather frantically, and Tony whipped his head towards him with just as much desperation.

“ _STOP!_ Do _not_ step in my snow angel!”

Steve had frozen immediately at Tony’s cry, but rolled his eyes and continued as soon as the rest of the sentence registered. Tony noted with satisfaction that he _did_ detour around the snow angel.

He crouched down next to Tony, who was still on top of Thor.

“You okay?” Steve asked, brushing his hand over Tony’s shoulder and back, ‘brushing off snow’ in a not-so-subtle attempt to check him over.

Tony rolled his eyes, but smiled.

“I’m fine, Steve.” He leaned down so that his head was right above Thor’s.

“Hey, big guy, how we doing down there?”

Thor turned his head through the snow so he could look sadly up at Tony with one eye, disturbing the small wave of snow silhouetting his body so a chunk fell on his nose.

“My plan was poorly though out, shield brother. I hope my foolhardy actions have not caused you harm?”

Tony grinned, and yanked his mitten off with his teeth so he could use his warm, dry fingers to clean some of the snow off of Thor’s face and eyelashes.

“I’m good, Thor. Though, let’s not try that again, huh? Everyone tries the face-down snow angel one time, it’s like a rite of passage, but trust me, you’ll like the face-up version much better.”

Thor nodded and began to stand, uncaring that he was taking Tony with him. Tony scrambled away, choosing to stand by Steve rather than be carried around again.

Steve was grinning at him, smile so wide it looked like it had to hurt, and his hands returned to Tony almost helplessly, brushing away snow and ice from his coat, scarf and hat.

“Are you two having fun?” Steve chuckled, and Tony grinned up at him, feeling impossibly giddy.

“You _came_ ,” Tony said in reply, having already forgotten what Steve had asked him.

This was fine, right? This was easy, even. This was just… him. Just Tony, with Steve and Thor. And then maybe later, hopefully, Natasha and Clint and Bruce too. This was fine. He could do this. He could be friends with the people he trusted with his life.

Just friends. Just that, no, no… nothing else. One step at a time.

“Of course I came,” Steve huffed, mock scowling. “You sent out an _‘Assemble.’_ text, you could have been _dying_.”

“I stipulated that it was a ‘non-emergency Assemble’,” Tony argued, “… After.”

Steve laughed. “Yes, _after_. I was half-way into the uniform when I got the second half.”

Tony waved a hind blithely, sending an arc of ice through the air. “Details.”

Steve shook his head, but let it go.

+++

Tony lay face down on his bed, trying his hardest not to sulk, which he _knew_ only made his not-sulking more obvious, but he couldn’t help himself.

He could _feel_ veritable waves of smugness rolling off of Pepper’s beautiful, smug face with its crooked, smug smirk… and she was all the way across the country.

“ _Stop_ ,” he groaned, flipping, “I concede, you were right, I was wrong, are you _happy_?”

Pepper’s amused hum was tinny through the speakers of his tablet, but the sound was as familiar to him as her heartbeat anyway, so it didn’t really matter.

“I don’t know why you were so worried, sweetie,” Pepper said archly, “It’s not like you’re _terrible_. A little hard to get used to, I won’t lie. And every single grey hair I end up dyeing will be thanks to you, I swear to God. But still, I knew you could win them over.”

Tony tipped his head to meet her gaze over thousands of miles, and smiled softly.

“Yeah. Whatever you say, Pepper-pot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kay guys but actually I really really meant to have some kind of posting schedule but then Netflix had _all ten seasons of Friends_ and then I was like 'Oh, I'm a season and a half behind on the Vampire Diaries' and you guys, I ship Bonnie/Damon so hard, I think I might die if they don't get together. 
> 
> So basically what I'm saying is that I'm terrible at adulting and should not under any circumstances be allowed to make my own decisions.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If you love like that, blood runs cold_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So updating schedules are apparently not a thing. On the bright side, I'm sure you'll be very pleased to hear I managed to save my GPA from dying a horrible, fiery death. 
> 
> On the other bright side, we finally start to have some plot in this chapter. I know! I was surprised too. Did anyone else forget that there was a plot in this story? Because there totally is. I promise. (Though the hints of plot are pretty vague. You're really going to have to squint. Maybe use a microscope.)
> 
> On the other _other_ bright side, this is where we earn that Tony/Natasha tag. IMPORTANT. THERE WILL BE HET SEXY TIMES AHEAD. I will not apologize for that if it upsets you (though, I can't imagine why it would - I can imagine literally nothing wrong with Natasha and Tony rolling around like two horny puppies) because I tagged for that right from the beginning. 
> 
> I am leaving the tagging as 'Mature' for now, because I don't _think_ any of this merits an 'Explicit' - if you disagree, just let me know and I will change it immediately and without resentment. I honestly intended the sex scenes to be milder or off-screen, but those sexy bastards got away from me. 
> 
> But enough of my rambling. Onward!

Tony _hated_ this feeling, like there were ants crawling under his skin, like there was electricity fizzing in his veins, like his bones would shake to dust if he sat still too long. Even a couple rounds in the ring with Happy hadn’t settled him – after Happy’d tapped out for the final time, swearing and muttering in that endearing way of his, Tony was still left with too much energy and nowhere for it to go. He was too antsy for fine detail work, and too shaky to trust himself to bang out the latest dents in the armour.

He knew what this feeling meant, of course – at some point, somewhere, he’d bumped into an Omega putting out _just_ enough heat hormones to trip up his system, but not enough for him to consciously notice it and avoid them. So here he was, jittery and aching for a good romp in the sheets, and absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Tony hadn’t slept the night before the hormonal whammy hit him, and as much as sleep was starting to drag it’s seductive fingers around the edges of his mind, there was no way he was going to be able to stay still long enough to even _think_ about sleeping.

The only upside to the situation was that at least it wasn’t Natasha in heat. If it had been her, he’d have already been face down in bed, rutting into the mattress and muffling his moans into a pillow while he shoved a dildo in and out of his own ass.

So there was no sign of his own oncoming heat, for which he was pathetically grateful at the same time he was distantly annoyed. At least then he would have had an excuse to stay out of sight.

Instead, he was pacing the tower, around and around the penthouse, and the workshop, trying to keep his own mish-mash of pheromones out of the public floors – at least until his already fraying patience wore out.

“Fuck it!” he growled, throwing his hands up as he stalked into the elevator. He jabbed the button for the communal floor with no little defiance. The Alphas could just fucking deal with it.

He did not at all anticipate encountering a shirtless, sweaty Clint as soon as the doors slid open. Tony took an instinctive step back, farther into the elevator as Clint whipped around to stare at him. Maybe he should just go back to the lab… Clint had been back at the tower for weeks now, apparently with 'no adverse effects' from his extended captivity, excusing the 'perfectly understandable' increased paranoia and nightmares. Tony'd always known the SHIELD shrinks weren't worth paper their degrees had been printed on. He was gonna go right ahead and call  _this_ an 'adverse effect'. 

“Tony!” Clint called, looking… well, relieved, maybe, but also kind of growl-y and Alpha-y and desperate. “Finally, thank God!”

Clint took a couple steps towards Tony, but then froze, casting a glance back to the closed door he had recently been pacing in front of. He went back to the door and settled into a sort-of-defensive crouch in front of it.

“Tony, come here! I need your help!”

Tony stepped carefully out of the elevator, deliberately moving as smoothly and obviously as possible. He was grateful that JARVIS left the doors open behind him, in case he needed to get out quickly. Unless he’d missed his guess, Clint had been hit by whatever had made Tony all wigged out, and while he wasn’t even kind of worried that Clint would try anything, it was still nice to have options.

Tony started to question his assumption that it wasn’t Natasha’s heat that was screwing with him. Mostly because the closer he got to Clint, the more he could smell her, and heat… but something wasn’t right. This wasn’t a Breeding Heat, not one like he’d ever seen (or had).

“Hey buddy,” Tony said, “Whatcha up to?”

“You have to help me!” Clint replied, somewhat frantically, “I just… _Ugh_ , I can’t fucking _think_ , I hate this – Natasha’s heat was coming up, and I knew it, I knew it I should have been ready, but then this morning she was there, and she wasn’t right, wasn’t normal, smelled _better_ than normal, and I was hurting her, she didn’t like it, but then she tried to _leave_ and I know, I know I should have let her but I couldn’t because she smelled _so good_ but the heats hurt her so I just followed her but I think it scared her so then I was chasing her because she wouldn’t _stop running_ and I don’t _want_ to hurt her –“

“So you decided to corner her in the movie room?” Tony finished, and Clint glared.

“Oh, believe me, I am _fully_ aware of exactly how bad of an idea this is, I just can’t _stop_ –“ Clint broke off with a growl, followed by several deep, calming breaths. Tony sidled closer, letting his body go, trying to communicate _pliantpackOmegafriend_ without Clint fixating on _him_ instead of Natasha.

“It just feels like she’s _safe_ like this, you know?” Clint continued helplessly.

Tony nodded. “Of course, Clint, I understand,” Tony crooned, close enough now to get a dizzying lungful of ClintandNatasha all jumbled up together. Jesus Christ, it had been a long time since anyone had smelled this _good…_

_No, stop, don’t think about it, don’t think about it._

“You’re just protecting her, that’s okay, you can’t help it.” Tony wrinkled his nose when Clint pulled his hand through the film of sweat on his chest, and then smeared it over the wall. Scenting. Awesome.

“I understand, you don’t want anyone to take her,” Tony soothed, finally taking the step that put him close enough to touch Clint. He held his arm out, wrist up, and Clint obligingly pressed his nose to Tony’s skin. He inhaled deeply, and Tony curled his fingers to card through the short hair behind Clint’s ear.

They stayed like that for several moments, just breathing together. Tony didn’t know what kind of steadying influence he could be expected to have on the frantic Alpha, but if Clint wasn’t complaining then neither would he. Clint’s lips parted slowly, puffing hot air across the sensitive skin at the inside of Tony’s wrists and sending shivers up his arm.

Clint flicked his eyes up to meet Tony’s, analyzing his expression. Tony rolled his eyes but let Clint sink his teeth into his wrist, leaving deep purple grooves. Tony wrinkled his nose.

Clint eventually released him, swiping his tongue over the new marks in Tony’s arm, looking insufferably smug. God, how Natasha stood being bonded to this creature was beyond him.

“Okay, sweetie, that’s very nice, good job, thank you,” Tony drawled, taking his hand back. “Feel better yet, bird brain?”

Clint glared at him, but it seemed a little bit more like a normal, ‘Clint is Tony’s asshole soulmate’ glare than a ‘fuck all the Omegas I am so horny’ glare, so that was fine.

“No,” Clint said shortly, and Tony cast his eyes up to the ceiling, lamenting _Why me?! Why me?!_

“Okay buddy, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to get in that elevator – hey, no, stop that. No growling, or I won’t help you. You’re going to get in that elevator, go back to your floor, and clean it up, okay, I can only imagine the mess you two crazy kids made of the place on your way out. Hide the broken furniture, change the sheets, and then find her a bunch of stuff to nest with. I will get Natasha out of the movie room, and bring her to you, okay?”

Clint still looked skeptical, so Tony sighed, and brought out the big guns.

“Clint, honey, you trust me, don’t you? You trust me to take care of you, and Natasha?” Tony murmured.  Clint nodded so quickly it looked like it had to hurt.

“Okay then. Go.”

Clint went, casting looks over his shoulder every couple of steps, but he went. Tony heaved a sigh of relief when the elevator doors finally closed behind him.

“JARVIS, don’t take him anywhere.”

“Of course, sir,” the AI replied primly, and Tony smiled.

“That’s my boy.”

+++

Tony eased the door to the “movie room” open carefully, fruitlessly scanning the darkness for any flicker of movement. He had to hand it to Clint – if he was going to corner someone in any room in the tower, this would be the room to do it in. The room had no windows, to prevent any accidental glare from ruining the picture. The walls were reinforced and soundproofed, as was the ceiling, blocking access to the crawlspace and air vents above.

So yeah. Good place to corner Natasha, assuming you were the suicidal kind of crazy that thought cornering a woman codenamed _Black Widow_ was a good life decision.

But, of course, the room was black, Natasha was probably wearing black, and she was a _ninja_ , so there was no way that Tony was ever going to be able to find her without the light – not that it mattered, really, there was no way that she didn’t already know he was here.

He slipped through the partially opened doorway, and pushed the door shut behind him. He took a deep breath – her scent was stronger now, dizzying and intoxicating and off-putting – and started to walk deeper into the room.

“Hey, Natasha,” he called, eyes scanning futilely side to side. “I chased the big, scary Alpha away, you can come out now.”

Tony smirked, and decided that he really was a suicidal kind of crazy, and called, “Here, kitty kitty kitty.”

Something hissed in the darkness off to the right, and Tony sauntered towards her, careful to give the general vicinity of the couches a wide berth.

“Now, where did you squirrel yourself away, little ninja? I promise, it’s safe to come out now.”

Tony paused in front of the cabinets where he thought she was hiding, fishing his phone out of his pocket. He tapped his thumb pensively against the screen a couple times, before swiping it on. The diffuse glow was bright as a sun in the pitch-black room.

He looked up and found Natasha instantly – she had scaled the cabinet, and was perched on top of it, glaring down at him. Her skin was clammy and flushed, and her hair was curled wildly around her face and neck. She looked – _and smelled_ – manic and desperate, and Tony couldn’t help himself.

He held his arms out, beckoning for her. “Come on, Natasha. I’ll take care of you, I promise.”

Natasha stared at him levelly for several long moments, but Tony didn’t look away or move.

His arms were starting to ache, his phone was slipping from its awkward position between two of his fingers, and she hadn’t chased him away yet, so he was going to stay right exactly here.

Finally, slowly, she eased herself over the edge of the cabinet, dangling one leg at a time over the edge before reaching down to put her hands in Tony’s. He eased his hands up her arms to her sides and then down to her waist as she slid down into him.

“Here we go, itsy bitsy spider,” he smiled once she was tucked securely into his chest, legs around his waist, “Just like that.”

She stabbed him in the side with her fingers hard enough to leave a bruise. He flinched, but walked them out of the movie room.

With Clint currently trapped in the normal elevator, Tony was forced to carry Natasha around to the service elevator, which didn’t connect to any of the personal floors – it connected the communal floor to the rest of the public spaces. And his workshop.

It wasn’t the _ideal_ place to go through a heat, even the False Heat Natasha must have been having right now, but it smelled familiar and would be comfortable enough. Well. It would smell like _him_ , and there was a bed. Cot. Thing. Whatever, it was soft and had blankets and was good enough for him to nest in so it could be good enough for her, damn it.

The freight door slid back as Tony approached, and he leant back against the far wall, still holding an eerily pliant Natasha. Thank God they weren’t going far, because he was not in any way muscle-y enough to heave her around forever.

He sighed heavily when the elevator lurched into descent. His head tipped forward naturally to press his nose into Natasha’s hair. She smelled _so good_ , God, he couldn’t believe he’d been _missing this_ for so long…

He had no idea other Omegas could smell so _amazing_.

Natasha crooned and nuzzled against him, bumping her nose into his throat again and again until the collar of his t-shirt had been pushed out of the way and her lips could rest against the flutter of his pulse.

“Don’t get used to this,” Natasha muttered against his collarbone, her words heavy and slow. “I could still kill you with both hands tied behind my back.”

“Is that a suggestion?” Tony teased, “I had no idea you were into that kind of thing, Widow, but as always, I live to serve.”

Natasha growled softly and did the finger-stabby thing again, but Tony still laughed.

As soon as the doors slid back, they were greeted by two overly-inquisitive robots, beeping and whirring eagerly. Butterfingers plucked curiously at Natasha’s clothes and hair, trundling along behind Tony as he crossed the workshop floor while You tried to steer Tony towards his workstation, like he’d forgotten where it was.

“Yes, thank you, not _You_ , you, I meant both of – Never mind, just go away, what are you even doing, why haven’t I given you away yet? I’m sure there’s an elementary school somewhere in need of a new piece of park equipment – Dummy, what are you _doing?_ ”

Tony finally spotted his first problem child, banging around in the workshop’s kitchenette. The robot spun around with a happy _chirrup_ , carrying a tray with two sludge-grey smoothies.

“Thanks, buddy, really, but I think we’re just going to – _oof_.”

Tony had tried to set Natasha down on the worn futon shoved into the corner of the workshop, but she’d declined to let go of him when he let go of her, and they tumbled onto the couch in a tangle of limbs.

Tony struggled up on his elbows so he could get a good look at Natasha. “Are you okay?”

She grumbled and twisted around underneath him until she was curled up on her belly. One arm snaked up over her shoulder to grab Tony behind his neck. She tugged sharply, pulling him down onto her, and purred with satisfaction as he blanketed her completely.

He chuckled softly. “Okay, I see how it is. We can cuddle, I won’t judge you.”

Tony twisted slightly to prop his chin on her shoulder so he could watch her face. Her giant green eyes blinked up at him sleepily before a tiny smile ticked up the corner of her perfect lips – and she was asleep.

Tony huffed out a disbelieving laugh, but stayed where he was, piled on top of Natasha on a ratty couch in the brightly lit workshop. He lifted one hand to her neck, resting his palm over the knobs of her spine and using his thumb to massage away tension.

“JARVIS, let’s make this nest a little less… well, _me_.”

“Of course, sir.” The overhead lights lowered to complete darkness at the same time the floor lights turned up slightly, so the whole room was only just bright enough to see. You and Butterfingers managed to pull the futon out from couch-form to bed without an excessive amount of jostling, and Dummy even found a couple extra blankets.

“And where are we at with Grumpy Elevator Alpha?”

“Mr. Barton has been returned to his own floor, on the condition that he not attempt to leave it. I believe he is on the phone with Agent Coulson at the moment, sir.”

“Good,” Tony mumbled, feeling irrationally sleepy. “Let Agent talk him down, I’m too tired.”

“Quite so, sir,” JARVIS replied softly.

Tony curled closer to Natasha with a gentle sigh, and found himself drifting off, surrounded by her sleepy-comfort smell and soft whuffles.

+++

Tony blinked awake slowly, details like the day of the week and where he was filtering in slowly, well behind the thought _warmpacknestmatefriend_. He breathed in tightly, flexing his entire body as he did before flopping back down heavily with a content sigh.

He hadn’t done this in, well… He’d never been particularly interested in _nesting_ during his own heats.

Though, he was entirely prepared to blame his pervasive feeling of contentment on the fact that he was currently face-planted in a _fantastic_ rack rather than the fact that he was nesting with Natasha.

Tony nuzzled appreciatively into the pillowy curves, and Natasha shifted gently under him. She made a sleepy sex noise, curling her arms around his shoulders. Tony wasn’t prepared to turn down that kind of invitation. Without opening his eyes, Tony managed to hook the neckline of her t-shirt down with his chin, just far enough that his mouth had access to her skin.

He sucked lurid bruises into her breasts, soft and slow, with only just enough pressure to bend her flesh around his teeth, sucking and licking over and over and over and _over_ before finally pulling away, just far enough to make another, separate mark while Natasha purred and arched into his mouth.

Tony pried one of his hands out from under her ribs so that he could hook his fingers into the cup of her bra and pull it out of the way. He scraped his teeth over her nipple, using just enough tongue to barely soothe the sting. He nipped the sensitive flesh carefully and closed his teeth over her areola. He pulled his jaw back and forth, rolling her nipple between his teeth. Tony worked her over until her nipple was a red, tender pebble, and turned his attention to her other breast.

By the time he was done, Natasha was making breathy, crooning noises into his hair, curled as she was around his head. Her hips undulated suggestively against him, and he was hard against her thigh – but Tony had never been less interested in fucking. Or being fucked.

No, he just wanted to drown in the hazy, drugging pleasure of marking Natasha over and over, crawling over and around her as he tried to suck her heat hormones out through her skin.

Tony pushed up onto his elbows above her, and Natasha’s legs draped easily over his waist and hips. He crawled slowly up her body, leading with his mouth. With teeth and tongue he left a trail of hickeys up over her chest and neck to the corner of her jaw, where he paused. The soft, humid puffs of her breath against his neck sent heat trickling down his spine, as he imagined his were doing for her.

There was a lock of hair, just behind Natasha’s ear, where the frizz from the humidity, and the heat, and the sweat, and the _writhing_  hadn't quite managed to penetrate, and a perfectly coiled ringlet remained. Tony drew the short curl into his mouth, twining the hairs around his tongue to take in the flavour of _cleanOmegashampoosweatpack_ as he contemplated the mark on her neck, just below his chin.

They only superficially resembled his marks, for all that they were made in the exact same manner. Or at least, a similar matter. The silvery arch at the base of her neck had been made by blunt teeth, not fangs. Tony idly considered how much force Clint must have used to break the skin without the aid of razor-edged fangs. He ducked his head, releasing Natasha’s hair to test his own teeth against her bond mark. She made another soft sound and tipped her head to give him better access.

He opened his mouth over the mark, careful not to apply any pressure with his teeth. He didn’t want to think about how badly Clint could react to someone covering over Natasha’s mark while she was in heat, even if that ‘someone’ was just another Omega. 

Her skin tasted like Clint where he had marked her, and wasn’t that a strange sensation. Tony could smell Natasha, and the normal traces of Clint-and-Coulson that were so tangled up in her that they were barely distinguishable – but against his tongue?

Well. He might as well by licking Clint right now.

And that visual wasn’t _nearly_ as off-putting as it should have been.

_Don’t think about it, don’t think about it._

After a few more minutes of analyzing the flavour of Clint embedded in Natasha’s skin, Tony nosed his way over to the other side of her neck, where a fainter, but identical, mark adorned her neck.

Here, the taste of Coulson was only vaguely stronger, more a general impression of him than a distinct flavour. Still, Tony was impressed. It wasn’t common that Betas were able to establish any sort of bond with their Omega partners, and for that bond not to be overwhelmed by the bonding to an Alpha, even as weak a bond as a that between a Primary Omega and Secondary Alpha.

Natasha had managed to drag herself most of the way awake while Tony was busy contemplating the nature of bonds and the universe, and she didn’t seem happy about it. She was squirming under him, and not in the fun way. She shoved him away petulantly, using the new space between their bodies to scratch at her shirt, clawing it up over stomach.

“Shh, Natasha, it’s okay, here,” Tony crooned, tugging his own shirt off quickly, “I’m right here, just settle _down_ , let me help you.”

He peeled her out of her t-shirt and bra, knowing that even the soft fabric of the cotton top was too much against her skin right now.

Honestly, it was getting to be a bit much for Tony, too.

An errant knee smacking into the hollow of his hip was all it took to convince Tony that they should be freed of their pants as well, and before long he was drowning in heat scent and hormones and skin and it was _glorious_.

He rolled onto his back, pulling Natasha on top of him. She writhed against him, purring, apparently losing herself in the same crescendo of sensation that came from the slip-drag of her skin against his. Tony curled up just far enough to clamp his teeth around the shelf of her collarbone, anchoring her frantic wriggling into a sinuous wave. He tightened his grip for just a second, and then let her go.

Tony bit her again, this time at the crest of her shoulder. A half-choked whimper cracked out of Natasha, and she pressed her mouth against his chest – not biting, not yet. Just breathing.

He marked her milky skin with his teeth, again and again. Deep bites in the heavy muscles of her upper arm and shoulder left rugged indents which turned purple within minutes and would last for days. Tiny nips and scrapes in the hollow of her elbow had Natasha whining again, baring her own teeth against his skin. He felt the sting of the bite as a gentle _pop_ as blood spilled into her mouth.

Tony rocked up against her with a growl, tightening his jaw around her forearm until the skin broke, and copper coated his tongue.

He lifted his head, Natasha’s blood staining his lips and chin, as she bent down to meet him, and their tongues tangled in a vicious kiss, sharp teeth and grasping hands and his fangs were probably scraping painfully against her tongue but that was okay because he loved the way her fangs felt against his and it was all tangled up in the taste of his blood and Natasha’s, and Clint and Coulson and something like ozone and sunshine on dusty skin and mountains and peppermint –

Tony couldn’t have said what did it, he didn’t understand any of it, it wasn’t even _his heat_ , but that didn’t seem to matter because when Natasha stiffened above him, pliant body going taut before abruptly shaking apart, heady waves of pleasure tore him to pieces too and there was nothing for it but to let her carry him under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, you guys are the greatest readers ever. Seriously. When I get stuck on the writing, I go back and read all the comments and they make me so happy. Gigantic sloppy kisses for everyone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _No grave can hold my body down, I'll crawl home to her_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has it only been a year since I updated? Am I on top of things, or what?!
> 
> ...
> 
>  
> 
> But you don't want to hear my excuses, you want to read a story. I'll apologize later. 
> 
> (In other news, if y'all have never been to South Africa... you gotta)

When Tony woke, he wasn’t curled up around soft curves, but rather draped across hard planes of muscle. A deep breath confirmed that those muscles belonged to Steve, and another that Natasha wasn’t in bed anymore.

He jerked upright – that was _wrong_ , Natasha was _his_ – but his escape was blocked by a super soldier that _clearly_ wasn’t as asleep as he should have been.

“Shh, Tony,” Steve murmured, pressing soft kisses to Tony’s neck from where he was seated behind him. Tony relaxed back against him, tempted to let his confusion sink back into the haze of lust and heat and comfort pulling at his thoughts, helped along by the way that Steve was now kneading at his sides and waist.

“Mmm, no, Tasha,” Tony demanded, even as he turned around, into Steve, pressing his face into the Alpha’s neck. God, Steve _had_ to smell this good because of the Super Soldier thing, there was no other explanation.

“She’s fine, Tony, I promise,” Steve reassured him, “Phil came and picked her up hours ago. You were out like a light, darling, you didn’t even notice.”

“Mmmm,” Tony muttered, trying to find the words that explained his discontent. Natasha hadn’t smelled right, hadn’t smelled like _wanting-Alphas_ , she’d smelled like… _s_ _omething_. He tipped his head back, extending his neck in a wordless demand for kisses, which Steve bestowed eagerly. Tony purred as Steve sucked soft kisses and bites into his neck, over and over again until he was shivering. He nearly collapsed when Steve settled a broad, heavy hand over the back of his neck and used his thumb to massage Tony’s bond glands, pressing and rubbing the sensitive knots of flesh.

Tony fumbled his own hand up Steve’s chest until he could press _his_ thumb to _Steve’s_ gland. Alpha’s didn’t always like it, Tony knew that, they though it was too presumptuous or – _whatever_ , but Steve would, Tony knew that Steve would.

The way Steve bit at Tony’s jaw and pressed on his neck hard enough to bruise said that he really, _really_ did. Tony purred and wriggled closer to Steve, who chuckled and tugged them both down so Tony was sprawled against his chest. He arched closer again, plucking at the clothes Steve was wearing with a frown.

“ _Off_ ,” Tony demanded. The soft cotton of Steve’s shirt and pants weren’t _annoying_ to his sensitive skin, or anything, they were just… _offensive_. He wanted them gone.

“No, Tony,” Steve said sternly, pushing his hands away at the same time he scooped him closer. Tony huffed, but let it go.

He pulled himself up so he was on top of Steve fully – hips tucked in the cradle of Steve’s pelvis, legs sprawled wide over Steve’s thighs, head tucked under Steve’s chin. Tony tapped his fingers idly against Steve’s ribs and Steve hummed, lifting his hands to stroke possessively over Tony’s back.

They lay together in comfortable silence, Tony trying to throw off the fugue from Natasha’s hormones, but feeling his mind sinking under the smell of _Steve_ , of Alpha and winter air and sunshine and dust and metal and blood and –

_Don’t think about it, don’t think about it –_

There was something… _ridiculous_ , about the way this was getting to him, how _aware_ he was that he was _completely_ naked, and Steve was not. The way he was so _open_ , and exposed, and vulnerable –

The way he felt empty, and hungry, deep inside, the way his ass was open, and soft, and _wet_ , and Steve was just _ignoring_ it, like it didn’t even matter that Tony wanted it, wanted his cock and his hands and yes, _okay_ , wanted to be split open on his knot –

Didn’t _matter_ , because this was Steve’s already, _he_ was Steve’s already, his ass his cock his everything belonged to Steve, so Steve could have this, have _him_ just like this, open and exposed and empty and soft and wet and _hungry_ whenever he wanted, and he didn’t want it now so he wasn’t _taking_ it, taking _him_ –

One of Steve’s hands curled tightly around the hair at the back of Tony’s head, pulling just hard enough to sting. Tony sighed, his thoughts stuttering out of sync before settling back into that languid hum of _heatsexpackfuckmate_. Steve’s free hand resumed its stroking, pressing gently against Tony’s skin in a steady slide from the nape of his neck, over the ridge of his shoulder and slope of his ribs, down the dip at the bottom of his spine and back up of the crest of his ass. Steve lingered there, for a second, possessive and admiring and _oh God yes please_ , before continuing to the extent of his reach, the sensitive crease between ass and thigh before travelling all the way back up.

Tony sighed. He wasn’t good at… this. Whatever _this_ was.

Not that he didn’t have experience. Pepper and Rhodey had both been amazing, so much more than he thought he’d ever get or ever deserve. He’d thought, maybe, that might be what a pack would be like, even if Pepper and Rhodey didn’t belong to him and he didn’t belong to them… well, maybe it was close enough anyway.

But _Steve_. Steve was different, Steve was special.

Steve was _his_.

“I’ve missed this,” Steve sighed, his whole body unwinding beneath Tony’s – and Tony. Just. _Froze_.

Steve pressed his nose into Tony’s hair, nudging at the short curls with his mouth and jaw, breathing deeply. He seemed so… happy, smelled so _content_.

Tony’d forgotten. He’d _forgotten_. He didn’t forget things, _important_ things, like how Natasha didn’t make noise _ever_ , and Thor needed to have a family, and Bruce wouldn’t ever want to be part of his pack –

And this wasn’t Steve’s first pack – _he_ wasn’t Steve’s first… anything.

His first pack had been formed during a war, sure, but that hadn’t made them any less real. They’d mourned for Steve, all but fallen apart when he was gone, and Steve – Steve mourned them too. Tony remembered, those first months after Steve woke up, how he’d been so _angry_ – not that Tony had been any help with that – and the months after that, when every step of Steve’s had seemed to heavy, too slow. He remembered being fiercely glad he’d never had a pack to lose –

And now here they were. Here _he_ was, about to bond with Steve, about to bond with all the Avengers, and then… And then he would lose them, just like he lost everyone. They would leave him, throw him away, because he wasn’t _good_ enough. _He didn’t know how to do this._

_He didn’t know how to do this._

The thought echoed around his head, over and over and over and he couldn’t _do this_ , not while wrapped around Steve.

Tony jumped up, obviously startling Steve enough that the Alpha was just a hair too slow to stop him, and darted for the elevator. Steve prowled along behind him, not trying to stop him, but not letting him go alone either. That was fine. Fine. Tony was fine. He wasn’t running, he _wasn’t_ , he just.

Something was wrong with Natasha. It was easier to remember that maybe this pack thing wasn’t so bad when he focused on that. Natasha. There was something… he could figure it out, he _could_ , if he could _think_ , but he _couldn’t think_ – with _Steve_ and _Natasha_ and _Clint_ and _Rhodey_ –

Rhodey? Why was he smelling –

“Here.”

Tony startled at the unexpected voice. He’d forgotten Steve was with him, forgotten they were walking because he needed to see Natasha, needed to smell her, needed to figure this out –

“Tony. Take the shirt.”

Tony blinked, trying to focus again.

For fucks _sake_ , why couldn’t he _focus_.

Steve was in front of him, watching him intently. They were in an elevator, his elevator, and it was going up. To Clint-and-Natasha-and-Agent’s floor. He felt… _slow_. Fuck, he felt slow and heavy, and _fucked out_ and still horny –

Steve was shirtless. Steve had – Steve _had_ been wearing a shirt, in bed, he had, Tony remembered trying to take it off him and now –

Tony reached out slowly, took the shirt from Steve, lifted it automatically to his face. He breathed in.

He keened, the scent of _Stevealphapackmate_ fizzing through his brain, stroking over every single one of his nerves. He could smell his own arousal crescendo in the close air of the elevator, and Steve’s, rising to meet it. But the Alpha just took a deep, steadying breath, and didn’t speak or move.

Tony folded the shirt around him, snaking his arms into the too-big sleeves with only a little trouble. The buttons were beyond him, but he didn’t mind. Tony curled his fingers into the plackets of the shirt, just below the collar, and bunched it up against his nose, breathing contentedly through the fabric.

Steve sighed, and stepped forward. He tugged gently on the tail of his shirt, which hung to the middle of Tony’s thighs, encouraging him closer. Starting at the bottom, Steve did up the buttons until the shirt was closed over his groin and waist, preserving his modesty – such as it was.

Tony smelled _wet_ , and fertile and fuckable. Wearing the armour was about the only thing that would stop him from being so… _obscene._

Tony took a small step, which put him right up against Steve, and nudged at his shoulder with his lips until Steve tucked an arm around him, folding Tony into his embrace. Tony sighed, and inched his own arms around Steve’s waist.

Something was wrong, and he needed to figure out what it was but… it was so _hard_ to focus.

Which was the problem, wasn’t normal. If anything, his problem was… hyperfocus.

But Steve smelled _so good_ , and Natasha smelled good, and Clint smelled good and he – Tony ducked his head, trying to scent himself, trying to figure out if he smelled like that same… _something_ , but he was covered in Steve, and pack, and – he couldn’t tell.

What _was_ that smell?

Did it matter?

“Tony? Tony, are you okay?”

Steve. Still here. Still – Natasha.

He could smell her now, and the elevator doors were opening but he was already through them, squeezing through ahead of Steve and darting down the hallway. Bedroom, she was in the –

On the bed, Clint then Natasha then Agent, all very, _very_ naked.

_Doesn’t matter_ , Tony decided, and padded into the room. Steve followed almost silently behind him.

Tony crawled up onto the bed, glad that the inhabitants were at least still. He pulled the blankets back, digging through layers of bedclothes until he was squished between Natasha and Coulson. Not even he was stupid enough to get between an Alpha and his Omega, even if that Alpha _was_ Clint.

“Who invited you, Stark?” Coulson whispered, but scooched back to give him more room instead of pushing him out. Tony just purred, content now that he was back with Natasha.

He was supposed to be with Natasha, she needed him because she was – She just needed pack, she did, and he didn’t know why but he was supposed to be there when she needed pack, when anyone needed pack.

Tony reached behind him and grabbed Coulson’s hand, pulling his arm around his chest so that he could lift Coulson’s hand to his mouth, wrapping his lips around just the very tip of Coulson’s finger, tasting him with the tiniest flick of tongue.

Tony sighed. Familiar. He tasted like pack, like part of NatashaClintPhil, but he didn’t… He didn’t taste _good_ , the way that Natasha and Steve and Clint smelled… _different_.

Natasha stirred, a wriggle of the blankets and a soft sleepy noise indicating that she’d woken. She rolled over to face Tony, pulling Clint’s arm with her the same way Tony had done with Coulson. Tony pressed their foreheads together, and sighed.

“Something’s wrong,” he whispered, tilting his head to bump his nose against Natasha’s softly. “I just… _can’t_ … I don’t remember… I can’t figure it out. But something…”

“I know,” Natasha breathed, closing the small distance between their mouths, so their lips brushed together with each word. “I’ve never… felt like this before. This isn’t… I don’t. I’ve never felt like this before.”

“Me neither,” Tony sighed. “We’ll figure this out.”

“After,” Natasha agreed, sliding over the mattress to press against him from chest to knee. Tony slid a leg between hers and hooked an arm around her waist.

“After.”

+++

“Come on, Bruce, enough,” Tony whined, trying to wiggle away from the ‘not actually that kind of doctor’ doctor’s needy hands, but Bruce didn’t let him go. He strapped the blood pressure cuff around Tony’s bicep, and squeezed the bulb to tighten it.

“It would have been, except you haven’t gone for your yearly check up in nearly _eight years,_ Tony, so while we’re waiting for the blood tests to finish up, you can just let me make sure you aren’t about to fall over dead.” He tucked his stethoscope under the edge of the cuff, tipping his head as he listened to Tony’s pulse.

“Might fall over dead of boredom,” Tony muttered.

“What was that?” Bruce asked mildly.

Tony smiled up at him innocently, widening his eyes in the way that never failed to convince Bruce to feed him or hug him or laugh at him instead of hulking out. “Nothing, sweetums.”

Bruce humphed, but couldn’t hide the way his mouth tipped up at the corners. He released the pressure of the cuff slowly, listening again to Tony’s heart.

“You keep reminding us all that you have a heart condition, Tony, the least you could do was act like it.”

Tony pouted. “I wouldn’t _have_ to keep reminding you if Steve would let me put a bell on the assassin twins.”

Bruce chuckled. “Like that would help.”

He turned to scribble something on Tony’s medical records, but Tony couldn’t make out what it was over Bruce’s shoulder. For a ‘you know I never actually went to medical school’ doctor, he took the illegible handwriting very seriously. Honestly, Tony wasn’t even sure where Bruce had found a _paper copy_ of his records – or maybe they _weren’t_ his, and Bruce was just trying to mess with him.

Bruce was probably messing with him.

Tony kicked his legs, thumping his heels against the exam table as obnoxiously as possible. Bruce didn’t even twitch.

Tony sighed gustily. “Look, is this even necessary?” he whined, “I’m not _dying_ , I know I’m not. I’ve been sort-of-dying a couple of times now, okay, I know what it feels like, I’m _fine_.”

“You were the one that insisted your and Natasha’s last heats were… ‘messed up’,” Bruce pointed out mildly, but didn’t get to argue further as a pleasant _ding_ from the computer distracted him. He clicked around for a while, downloading the results of Tony’s blood test and opening them. Bruce scrolled through the results in silence, let out a small “Hmm” of surprise, and then looked over everything again from the top.

Tony got ready to run. None of _that_ meant anything  _good_.

He eased himself off the table slowly, trying to wrinkle the paper as little as possible.

Bruce looked up and caught him, but gave him a reassuring smile instead of a reprimanding glare.

“Stay, Tony, please. Everything is fine,” Bruce smiled. “In fact, everything is great!”

“Fine?” Tony asked, skeptical, “Great? What about _my_ blood tests was ‘fine’ and ‘great’?”

He hadn’t heard those words from a doctor since before his parents died. Nowadays they tended to prefer ‘serious’ and ‘life-threatening’.

Bruce chuckled, and turned the screen towards Tony so he could read the text. He scrolled to a section of the data which showed several bars, two of which were labelled ‘estrogen’ and ‘progesterone’ – the third was ‘human chorionic gonadotropin’. Tony didn’t know a lot about biology, but he knew enough to know that it wasn’t a _good thing_ that that bar was high.

“You’re not sick, Tony. Usually, Natasha’s heats are strong enough to trigger your own, sympathy heats. They’re usually false heats, because, well, you are older, and male omegas rarely have breeding heats anyway. I’m guess that, given the time you two have been living in close proximity, your heats have started to sync up, and living with another, fertile omega finally boosted your hormones enough that you were both prepping for a breeding heat this cycle.

“But, Tony. You’re already pregnant.”

+++

Tony blinked, finally focussing on the pale blue holo-display in front of him. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting here, how long it had been since he’d stumbled dazedly out of the med bay, away from Bruce, but there was only one thought in his head.

_Run_.

He reached out, putting his fingers on the floating keyboard, and started typing.

He didn’t know what was wrong with him, what was wrong with Bruce’s tests, but they were _wrong_. He _couldn’t_ be pregnant. It wasn’t possible.

Nevermind that it explained everything, Bruce was right. His hormonal balance had been better in the course of the past month than it had been for _years_ , since before Afghanistan, even. He’d chalked it up to finally living with another Omega (not Steve, and his stupid, distracting, _mouthwatering_ Alpha pheromones – _no_ ), but he still remembers being twenty-two, when false heat after false heat had been taking him out at the knees for several months. He’d finally caved and gone to a doctor (Rhodey had dragged him bodily to a doctor after the third time he’d found Tony too weak to get off the couch on his own), who’d looked him straight in the eye after he’d finished describing his symptoms and told him the only way to fix it for sure was to get pregnant. He’d managed not to storm out of Dr. Chacko’s office long enough to let her give him a prescription for suppressants. Their relationship had improved over the years, mostly because she never brought up the pregnancy thing again.

Tony hit the last button on his string of code with a bit more force than required, maybe, and watched as suit after suit rolled out their storage units.

“Alright, J, buddy, this is all you now,” Tony called, clapping his hands together once as he strode over the drawer holding his flight suit.

“What is, sir?” JARVIS replied carefully, sounding as hesitant as he could. Tony grinned.

“No telling anyone where I am. Don’t tell anyone that I left, no notifiying anyone that I won’t make meetings, do not provide anyone with records of the suits’ flight paths, nothing. Your answer to all questions, supposing the topic is me, is ‘I am unable to comply’, capisce?”

“Sir, I must protest –“ JARVIS started, but Tony cut him off.

“Nu-uh, baby boy, _nothing_. To _anyone_. _At all_. I am so serious right now, J.”

Tony stripped out of the jeans and t-shirt he’d put on that morning, threw his underwear and socks on top of the pile, and started tugging on the reinforced flight suit he’d made for those days when he first, had time to prep before a mission and second, knew he was going to be in the armour for a long time.

He walked back over to his holo display, pulling up a program he’d written years ago, never thinking he’d have to use it.

“Sir…” JARVIS said, but Tony shook his head again.

“Sorry J, you know I wouldn’t do this if I had a choice.”

Tony started typing, manually disconnecting JARVIS’ link to the Iron Man armours, leaving them with only the most rudimentary navigation and weapons handling programs. As he did, he loaded the suits with their flight paths and coordinates.

“Sir, you _do_ have a choice,” JARVIS protested, “You do not have to run. Nobody here will try to force you to do something that you do not want to do.”

Tony had to grin at that, though the expression felt like it was cracking his face. JARVIS didn’t know, the way Tony knew, that there was nothing anyone could do about his ‘pregnancy’ – because it wasn’t true. It _wasn’t_.

“No, J, they can’t. Because I won’t let them.”

Tony walked up to one of the suits, a sleek, matte silver and black armour he’d intended to fit for Rhodey. It opened as he approached and folded smoothly around him. The HUD lit up, just as always, but the absence of JARVIS’ voice in his ear was profoundly disturbing, and almost enough to make him step out of the suit and come up with a new plan. Tony shook it off; there was no time for second-guessing. There was no chance that Bruce wasn’t going to tell Steve and if Steve thought he was pregnant he would want to –

_Don’t think about it._

Tony swooped up out of the workshop, and the suits followed him one by one out the side of the building. They swarmed up the tower to the very peak, and then split, armours heading in every direction.

On the streets below, people cheered and pointed, amazed at the display. People who followed The Avenger’s official Twitter account would have seen a tweet explaining the deployment of the armours as “Just a training exercise, everyone!”, and those who followed Tony Stark would have seen another reading “Would hate for one of these things to crash and kill the pilot ;)”.

The armours, empty and occupied, flew for hours in their pre-programmed directions. People all over the country watched as armours flew overhead, never landing. Nobody noticed the one silver armour that did land outside a used car dealership, in the dead of night, somewhere in the Midwest - nor the man that got out of it before it took off again.

Tony hopped into the front seat of an old Toyota that had _definitely_ seen better days, and reached quickly under the steering wheel to tug free a handful of wires. It took no time at all to start the car and drive it off the lot through the gate he’d already unlocked and opened. He felt a little bit bad about stealing the car, but it had taken him forever to find a car that wasn’t in view of _any_ cameras whatsoever, and really, what did the owner expect to happen if he wasn’t going to spring for video surveillance? He made a mental note to bring the guy a pile of cash later.

Tony pointed the car towards the highway, starting on the route he’d been careful to memorize before he left the Tower.

There was only one person who would believe that he wasn’t pregnant.

He had to talk to Pepper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, _so_ sorry that it took me so long to get another chapter up. I want to give the biggest hug and the most sincere thank you to everyone who stuck around, any subscribers who gave this story another chance when you got notified of an update, and _especially_ to all the people who commented and said that they still loved the story, and even after all this time were still hoping for an update. Your comments have seriously been the loveliest thing, and I hope that this chapter made a few of you happy. 
> 
> I won't lie though, or make promises I can't keep - the muse on this one has all but curled up and died. I would _hate_ to abandon this story, because I really do love it, so I'm going to try really hard... but I don't know. 
> 
> I was thinking of writing the next chapter from Steve's POV, to hopefully renew my interest in writing this story - is that something you guys would like, or do we enjoy only seeing what Tony thinks about this mess?


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